How to disable Twitter’s ‘For You’ feed: You can’t, and here’s why

Changes at Twitter continue as Elon Musk keeps trying to shake up his social media network to boost user engagement. This morning, Twitter rolled out a new default feed view for users of the Twitter iOS app. The new view is called “For You” and is built around Twitter’s discovery algorithm. The aim of the new feed is to show users tweets from accounts they may not follow, yet find interesting nonetheless.

The “For you” and “Following” tabs replace “Home” and “Latest” and will be pinned to the top of your timeline so you can easily switch between them. Swipe to switch timelines instead of tapping the ? icon.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 11, 2023

Users can manually swipe between the “For You” feed to their “Following” feed, which shows tweets from accounts they actually chose to follow. Yet there’s a problem with this implementation that has Twitter users up in arms: In the iOS app, you can’t set the default to the “Following” feed. Every time you open the app, you’ll see the “For You” feed first.

The reason for this is simple: Musk wants to grow engagement on the platform—and the quickest way to get engagement is to show users tweets from accounts they may not follow with the hope that it will lead to more interaction on the platform.

But many users see this engagement play as devaluating their experience on the platform, not improving it.

‘For you’ tab gives the feed 75% more spam, in other words I’m seeing tweets of people I have zero interest in, and not following.
I give this change a day before being reverted back to how it was in v9.41

— Anarkii ? (@Anarkii_) January 11, 2023

I never want to see anything but a chronological feed.

It was the same 12 years ago and it’s the same now.

— Mark Burge (@markeburge) January 11, 2023

Screw that. It changes back to “For you” every time I re-open the app. I just want to see everything in linear order from the accounts I’m following, nothing more, which is how it was before you unnecessarily changed it.

— Nick Michalak (RavensFilm Productions) (@RavensFilm) January 11, 2023

Some Twitter users pointed out that Twitter tried something similar last year, which resulted in users revolting back then, too.

did you forget what happened last time this happened https://t.co/T0URPuLnb9

— Chris (@UppercaseCCC) January 11, 2023

If the new “For You” feed changes feel familiar, it’s because TikTok has long offered something similar. And given how much more successful TikTok is than Twitter, it’s no wonder that Musk is trying to emulate the discoverability features that have made the ByteDance-owned app such a favorite among younger users. Unfortunately, as the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University pointed out in December, emulating TikTok has not worked out well for other social media apps in the past, in part because the copied features just end up feeling awkward or disruptive on platforms they weren’t built for.

Will Twitter’s copy-and-paste job turn out differently? That remains to be seen. But given the blowback on Twitter about the new “For You” feed, the early signs point to users being greatly upset about the changes. And this does not bode well for further changes Musk has in store for the app. In a tweet on Sunday, Musk said the “For You” change was just the “First part of a much larger UI overhaul.”

Easy swipe right/left to move between recommended vs followed tweets rolls out later this week.

First part of a much larger UI overhaul.

Bookmark button (de facto silent like) on Tweet details rolls out a week later.

Long form tweets early Feb.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 8, 2023